Police Chief: Underage Tobacco Sales 'Uncommon' in Dearborn

In June,  issued citations to as part of a larger tobacco compliance check throughout the city. But is underage tobacco sale a major issue in Dearborn?

Dearborn Chief of Police Ronald Haddad doesn't think so.

Haddad said these checks are done on a “fairly regular basis,” but declined to comment on the exact cycle due to their covert nature.

And while four citations were issued, Haddad said that the checks actually reflected positively on the Dearborn business community.

“The bigger success story is actually that in spite of the fact that we issued four violations, more people passed than didn't pass the compliance check,” he said.

While this compliance check did result in violations, Haddad said a majority of stores passed.

“More than 50, 60, 70 percent of (stores) passed the compliance check,” he said. “That tells me that we don't have a real big issue with it, but we want to be responsible to make sure stores are doing the right thing.”

He added that two years ago, a similar compliance check of about 13 stores was conducted, and each store passed “with flying colors.”

Haddad said that the citations often result from a temporary lapse in judgement.

These checks “ensure that if someone is a minor, that the storeowners are attentive,” he said. “A lot of times, it's just a lack of paying attention.”

After a person has been issued a citation for selling to minors, that person must pay a fine decided upon by the court, Haddad said. Repeated offenses or violations could lead to a store losing its liquor license.

“Here in Dearborn, we have a very active community and on occasion, we will get two or three complaints about a location,” he said. “Maybe they're selling to minors or they have … unsavory people hanging around in the parking lots.”

Nonetheless, he added that reports of those and similar incidents and uncommon and under control.

“We don't get many of those kinds of complaints,” Haddad said. Between our compliance checks and the responsible business community, we're in real good shape.”

In addition to tobacco compliance checks, Dearborn Police also conduct compliance checks for alcohol and–more recently–K2, a synthetic drug in Michigan.

Shortly after K2 was banned, Haddad said the police conducted a sweep of all Dearborn stores that sold the drug. 

“Within four hours we hit every store in the city,” he said. “We try to go across the board.”